The furthest depths of sound are awakened in this distinctive sonic environment inspired by ocean movements and its mysteries. Beginning anew, cv313 delivers an etheric approach in, "analogue oceans" that fearlessly illuminates the culmination of 25-years of sound design, a continuous transformation that engages the listener in ways it never has before. Shimmering metallic washes of color meet sub-aquatic tones, creating an immersive sonic world unlike anything heard before, this is hands down some of most engaging sound worlds this project has ever explored.

"The sound of water is deep, its form is serpent-like, its color green, and it is best heard in the roaring of the sea." -The Sufi Teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan

This mysticism is the essence of our time.

For Cora [R.I.P.] 10/04/2017

CD 1:
1: cv313 "analogue oceans" [current I] divergent
2. cv313 "analogue oceans" [current II] convergent
3. cv313 "analogue oceans" [current III] transform

CD 2:
3. cv313 "analogue oceans" [variant's conduction]

Thoughts:

"When it comes to immersive listening experiences built on cutting-edge sound design, few can match the continued brilliance of Echospace duo Rod Modell and Stephen Hitchell. For proof, check the pair's latest offering under the alternative CV313 alias. Built around a suite of three drawn-out soundscapes, Analogue Oceans sees them mimicking the ebb and flow of oceanic tides by smothering gentle dub techno rhythms in lapping waves and soft-focus, spacey electronics. On disc two, Hitchell goes solo to present his own, hour-long interpretation under the Variant guise, heading into the pitch-black depths via watery effects, clandestine aural textures and suitably horizontal ambient dub rhythms." -Juno

"So you've just arrived back home from an epic night clubbing, limbs aching, heart pounding, with sweat drenched clothes you stagger home on the night bus while tucking into doner meat and chips, the thumping 4/4 beats still ringing in your ears and the disco biscuit in your blood stream is a long way from coming down so what you really need are some soothing beats and warm drones to help you drift into slumber, cv313 is just what the doctor ordered, let the ambient bliss of echospace drench you it's gentle embrace and float off down the flowing dream stream into sleepy land.......zzzzzzzzzz.." -Norman


If you look closely at the works of Stephen Hitchell and Rod Modell, even after the titles of the records they record, you can see that the greatest inspiration is for both creators of nature. They have in their output albums devoted to various phenomena of our world: clouds, aurora and stars. Now the ocean joins this catalog. He is dedicated to the latest album of both men, and branded the name cv313 - "Analogue Oceans". We get four versions of the title song on it.

"Analogue Oceans (Current 1) Divergent" is an epic vision of dub-techno. The basis for the recording is a heavily beaten pulse, which is accompanied by wavy chords, sewage effects and cascades of sound corrosion. The poignant mood of the composition is created here, however, by a reggae melodic motif, turning the recording into a mystical meditation. "Analogue Oceans (Current 2) Convergent" focuses on majestic, grainy tones. They flow over the suppressed beat, giving the recording a withdrawn and reduced tone.

"Analogue Oceans (Current 3) Transform" is like translating both previous versions into the language of trance music. Hitchell and Modell slowly build up the tension by looping in the next sound motifs, eventually reaching a hypnotic culmination. The opposite of this version is "Analogue Oceans (Variant's Conduction)". This time all the sounds are slowed down, which makes you feel that the music resonates outside of time. But here too there is no shortage of melody brought by corroded chords and pulsing bass.

The ocean consists of waves - and so happens in all versions of the dedicated composition. American producers are ingeniously using the essence of this natural phenomenon to create its equivalent in sound matter. The effects are exceptionally beautiful and touching: nature is elevated to the form of the Spirit, revealing its eternity and imperfection. As a result, "Analogue Oceans" is another example of sonic metaphysics, with such a passion for Stephen Hitchell and Rod Modell for almost a quarter of a century! -Nowamuzyka Magazine

From Rod Modell and Stephen Hitchell I knew only one album, Liumin, released under the pseudonym DeepChord presents Echospace, massive urban road trip in an underwater civilization, a techno dub that sticks to the body, whose urgency is relegated to a background always in motion, an art whose flows are sustained but troubled, far away, while the closer to our ears it is a formidable mixture composite, aquatic, organic that truly captures us - rarely, in some disc that that is, all genres combined, I was so instantaneously transported into a universe (the term is rash, but here it is justified by the richness and coherence of its evocative sound ecosystem). Well, some time later, this analogous oceans appears, that the same guys are behind the controllers and have spent years ... doing the same thing all the time, with a few variations.

But I'm not a man to take offense for so little, both guys (especially Rod Modell of what I understand, prince of electronic aquatic atmospheres) seem to have very precisely found what they excel at and continue to exploit it which seems inexhaustible, I'm not going to ask them to go to the country to see if there is any hidden talent. Especially since, obviously listening to this album no less massive than his big brother, they are not content to stay in stagnant water and patiently renew their sea currents, extending the course and widening the bed. The CV313 work on long formats - from 18 to 30 minutes per track, with one of the 5 tracks stretching for an hour. And if the atmosphere is just as rich and instantly speaking as Liumin's, the tracks here take more time to develop their abstract narration, so as to slowly raise the sound with ethereal beaches on which waves crash. evanescent crackling sounds, and dull beats infra low (it's not the "dub" techno for nothing, it's a bit as if our neighbors in the center of the Earth were the surf and we heard them pulsed echoes in the ocean through the Earth's crust).

If you have fun calculating the total duration of analogue oceans we come to a little more than 2 hours and 30 minutes of music. It's a lot of yes, on paper, but when you spend this time in such company, the said time takes on a whole other gravity, it floats and any notion of "duration" takes a sweet air of anecdote. There is one last thing; the dreamlike elephant in the corridor of ether, this Homeric track of 62 minutes which moves away from the technoid structures to go towards the quasi-pure ambient juice, leaving in the night light the pulsative to better detail a sound environment which never ceases to transform, slowly but surely, a real coral reef that lives with its fauna and flora. This is also what devotes analogous oceans: for any lover of Liumin, this second ambient half has always struggled to convince me as much as his techno counterpart, and it creates a certain imbalance in listening (understand: I often stop after the first disc). Here, on the other hand, Modell and Hitchell prove that they, too, have not ceased to evolve in their field, that the impressions of "always the same" are only that, impressions, vague and uttered in haste while they fly over the dub techno game being, this time, as competent in every facet of their art. (18/20) -XSilence Magazine

Il suono dell’acqua è profondo, la sua forma è serpentina, il suo colore è verde e lo si ode sopratutto nel mugghiare del mare.

Quattro tracce, più due ore di musica. Dub techno ispirata, in primis, dai movimenti ondulatori degli oceani causati dall’azione del vento, il cui soffio colpisce le particelle d’acqua che oscillano attorno alla propria posizione, generando increspature che, poco alla volta, si trasformano in onde. Le particelle d’acqua descrivono, ulteriormente, movimenti circolari che diventano più piccoli all’aumentare della profondità, fino a scomparire del tutto. Il parallelismo con i brani di Rod Modell e Stephen Hitchell è tanto evidente quanto suggestivo. Le creazioni del duo cv313 sono, spesso, caratterizzate da uno stato di agitazione costante, con creste e flutti che salgono e scendono, mentre onde ‘sonore’ s’infrangono su una superficie eterea. È un moto senza fine.

“Analogue Oceans” (2018) è l’ennesima ottima release a cura della echospace [detroit] che, in parallelo, rilancia il pensiero di Inayat Khan che, tra le prime pagine de “Il Misticismo Del Suono” (1923), precisava anche come una vibrazione potesse causare diversità di toni e, nel mondo degli atomi, diversità di colori. “Raggruppandosi insieme le vibrazioni diventano udibili e si moltiplicano man mano che si avvicinano alla superficie e avanzando si materializzano”, spiegava l’indiano. “Il suono da alla consapevolezza l’evidenza della sua esistenza benché, in verità, sia la parte attiva della conoscenza stessa che si trasforma in suono. Colui che conosce diviene cosciente di se stesso, cioè la consapevolezza fa da testimone alla sua voce. Così il suono attrae l’uomo”.

Lo stesso “può produrre effetti gradevoli o sgradevoli sia sul corpo che sulla mente umana e ha un effetto curativo, così come erbe o medicinali che a loro volta hanno la loro origine nelle vibrazioni”. È il mistico incipit dell’insegnamento sufista. “L’uomo non è soltanto formato da vibrazioni, ma vive e si muove in esse; queste lo circondano come il pesce è circondato dall’acqua e l’uomo le contiene come un serbatoio contiene l’acqua stessa”. “Il suono dell’acqua corrente, di ruscelli montani, il piovigginare e picchiettare della pioggia, il suono dell’acqua che scorre da una brocca in un vaso, da una bottiglia in un bicchiere, tutti questi suoni hanno un effetto gradevole e allegro e rendono inclini a fantasticare e a sognare, destano l’immaginazione, l’affetto e le emozioni”.

Non è casuale che Inayat Khan si distinse anche come musicista. “Analogue Oceans” è caratterizzato, inoltre, dalla particolare scelta dei titoli dei brani che, con buona dose di fantasia, prendono in esame l’attività geologica terrestre: Analogue Oceans [Current I] Divergent, Analogue Oceans [Current II] Convergent e Analogue Oceans [Current III] Transform si riferiscono al movimento delle placche che costituiscono l’involucro solido esterno della Terra, la litosfera, che crea tre tipi di margini tettonici, convergenti, divergenti e trasformi. I margini convergenti si generano quando una placca oceanica si immerge al di sotto di una massa continentale. I margini divergenti provocano la separazione di due o più placche. I margini trasformi innescano terremoti.

Il battito di Detroit e il ruggito del mare. Suoni e località separate da oltre seicento miglia. Pulsioni elettroniche e registrazioni dal vivo. Musica che si spinge oltre i confini dello spazio, realizzata tra il 2012 e il 2013, e che fa propri alcuni frammenti ‘oceanici’ raccolti tra il Giappone e le Hawaii. Il primo cd di “Analogue Oceans” è un continuum dall’afflato visionario, con oltre settanta minuti da ascoltare preferibilmente al buio, quasi senza pause. Gli esperimenti sono limitati, tra variazioni a intervalli regolari e melodie eteree. La struttura ritmica è tanto imponente quanto ridotta al debito calibro, pronta per essere sottoposta a un nuovo editing a cura di Stephen Hitchell: è il caso di Analogue Oceans [Variant’s Conduction], un’altra ora di loop ipnotici. -Souterraine (Italy)